Aug. 2, 2013 — Why can't the pine snakes cross the road? Hint: New Jersey traffic might have something to do with it.
Drexel students will bring to light these and other findings about the plight, perils and peculiarities of the Northern Pine Snake in several presentations and posters at the Ecological Society of America annual meeting next week (ESA 2013), based on their research with Dr. Walt Bien's Laboratory of Pinelands Research in the New Jersey Pinelands.
Northern pine snakes are charismatic ambassadors for the Pinelands National Reserve, an ecologically important region -designated as a U.S. Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and as the first National Reserve in the United States. The pine snakes are large, nonvenomous, docile and beautiful (at least to the non-phobic).
The population in New Jersey is threatened, and the next-nearest population of northern pine snakes is in North Carolina. Protecting these snakes from the human-generated perils in the most densely populated U.S. state can go a long way toward protecting the entire ecosystem they are a part of.
Here is a closer look at some of the Drexel team's research:
Snake surgery is a special skill for conservation
Dane Ward has a rare talent for a graduate student in conservation biology: He is an adept snake surgeon. Many animals are studied using radio telemetry by attaching a radio transmitter to the outside of the body. Radio telemetry is useful for tracking pine snakes because their movements are hard to see through simple observation. But placing a transmitter on the surface of a pine snake's skin would interfere with the animal's slithering movements and feeding via constriction. So Ward has learned to surgically implant the transmitters in snakes instead, through a tiny one-inch incision.
The team has radio-tracked more than two dozen adult pine snakes in recent field seasons. The data have helped them learn more about the snakes' spatial range and behavior and develop population models they hope will be useful for conserving the locally threatened population of pine snakes.
Ever feel lethargic on a hot day? It's worse for snakes.
Radio tracking pine snakes gave Ward and Drexel undergraduate Catherine (Katie) D'Amelio an opportunity to take an unusual approach to studying climate change. Because snakes are cold-blooded, and New Jersey is the northern limit of the pine snake's range, they reasoned that shifts in weather and climate could have an impact on their behavior.
D'Amelio looked at the data from snakes that had been tracked over three seasons, and compared their activity levels with the air and soil-surface temperatures the snakes encountered. At the highest temperatures, snakes' activity levels dropped off.
Comparing the snakes' most active temperature range with predictions of shifts due to climate change, the team pointed out that the timing of seasonal activities may shift in the future -- which could impact their interactions with other species. And they note that freezing to death could be a danger if early-spring warming periods, followed by cold snaps, become common -- something they observed in the spring of 2012.
D'Amelio won a top award at the Mid-Atlantic regional ESA meeting earlier this year for the poster on this work -- earning her a trip to present it at ESA 2013 in Minneapolis.
